People who live in the country's industrial zones and experience its pollution already feel the effects of what a hotter planet will bring as carbon levels climb and air quality steadily worsens, resulting in higher rates of asthma, allergies, respiratory ills and even heart disease.

When I left for a week of reporting in rural California in late February, I didn't know I would come back with two stories about the devastating health consequences of isolation.

I'm not just talking about the geographic isolation one finds in a remote area. From the hilly evergreen landscape of eastern Shasta County, to the agricultural flatlands of Tulare County in the South Central Valley, I witnessed how isolation can leave people in the dark about keeping healthy, lead to emotional despair, and pose real barriers to quality of life.

Every ER has patients like "Sam." The staff call them "frequent fliers" because they patch them up and discharge them, only to watch them return an hour or a day or a week later with another problem. How much should the health care system spend to help someone who won't help himself?

Journalist Mark Taylor examines how one Gary, Indiana emergency room continues to serve some of the sickest and neediest patients in the region, handling more gunshot, knife wound and violent trauma cases than other area ERs, alongside the chronically ill.

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